CONTINUING the WAR against RELIGION!

INTRODUCTION TO PREPARE SLAUGHTER!

Since this book was completed, over fifteen years ago, the master pages have followed me around from place to place, most notably from New Zealand to Australia, then from state to state and town to town. Having completed the writing and the typesetting I had no money to publish the damned thing. Besides, with the end of the Reagan era in 1985 the urgency kind of went out of the project.

I'd better explain. It seems incredible now, looking back just fifteen years, that the world seemed to be on the brink of nuclear war. U.S. President, Ronald Reagan, was pushing for it and had it not been for the sensible and heroic Mikhail Gorbachev he probably would have achieved his goal – Armageddon. I once read that Americans approach foreign policy as though it were a game of poker, whereas the Russians tend to play it like a game of chess. Certainly in Reagan's case he risked everything on a show of cards. As luck would have it, he won. Had he lost he would have triggered a nuclear holocaust and hundreds of millions of people would have perished. As far as Ronald Reagan was concerned it was a case of heads he won, tails the other side lost. Because if nuclear war had occurred Reagan was convinced that Jesus would return to Earth and rescue the faithful, of which he was one.

I wrote 'Prepare Slaughter' in a frenzy of fear and paranoia. I believed that unless christianity was exposed as a fraud and its fundamentalist war mongers thwarted, the world was doomed. I remember thinking that I might have one chance in a thousand of alerting the public to what was going on and ultimately of triggering a backlash against christianity. I knew it was like striking the moon with a catapult but it was the only thing I could think of doing.

Now, fifteen years later, with the immediate threat over, I see things more objectively. I still believe that Reagan came close to triggering World War Three and that it was his religious beliefs which motivated him. I still believe that Christianity must be exposed and rejected in order for there to be lasting peace on this planet, but not just Christianity, all religions. Religious belief has no place in the modern world. It was bad enough when God's True Warriors used to slaughter God's Other True Warriors with bows and arrows, but nowadays when Jew, Muslim, Hindu and Christian each have "god" on their side plus the atomic bomb it's a recipe for nuclear, chemical and biological disaster.

I view life as a contest between religious zealotry and reason. If reason wins then the world might survive. If religious zealotry wins then it's Bye Bye Birdie. And while I say "the urgency kind of went out of the project" that's not strictly true. Dr Helen Caldicott believes that war will break out within 20 years if agreement isn't reached to ditch nuclear weapons. According to Caldicott nuclear disarmament is our only hope. I can't help thinking that if I'm aiming at the moon with a catapult, she's aiming at Venus. No one will seriously disarm while there remains so much distrust and hatred between nations.

"I predict that within a decade, 10 more nations, such as India and Pakistan, will have developed their own nuclear arsenals and, within 20 years, there will be a nuclear war."

Dr Helen Caldicott - 1999

Religion provides a safety net for high-wire nuclear acrobats. If they fall and get killed it doesn't matter because Jesus, Mohammed, Vishnu or Jehovah will see to it that they're well looked after in goo-goo-land. (Maybe not in the case of a Hindu because he might come back as a frog!) And if when they stumble they take a hundred million people with them, that doesn't matter either because the righteous will be saved and the sinful will burn in the everlasting "Lake of Fire". Everything will be perfect after the bombs drop. Fundamentalist Christians have a name for it, it's called "The Rapture".

While all religions are stupid and dangerous, Christianity remains the most stupid and the most dangerous. It is the only religion which makes nuclear war appear to be a happy and joyous event. If someone contaminated with those beliefs can become President of the United States of America – and he did – then it follows that such people can also become captains of nuclear submarines, or commanders of missile silos. It means they can find employment in the computer rooms which control the Pentagon's fail-safe systems.

So my book is still very important. And it's still urgent. Will it have any impact? Who knows – it might cause a few ripples, it might trigger debate. There again it might make a good door stop...

ozheretic

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INDOCTRINATION

FAITH is when a geologist holds in his hand a rock which he has studied and found to be at least two million years old, yet he claims it is only six thousand years old because the bible tells him that the world was created 6,000 years ago and the bible can't be wrong. So quite apart from the danger posed by religion, I dislike it intensely because of the way it drives otherwise intelligent people to supress their intelligence and compels them to believe a hotchpotch of absurdities and stupidities.

Like, if I approached an intelligent man on the street, someone who had managed to remain free of religion, and I described a story about a virgin giving birth to a baby who was in fact the creator of the universe, who grew up to raise rotting corpses from the grave but who frequently flew into a rage and condemned disbelievers to an eternity spent writhing in agony and who was himself tortured and murdered by his enemies but he came back to life again and eventually flew up to a place known as heaven to spend the rest of his days with his father, who was in fact himself – I suspect the first thing the stranger would do is either feel my forehead to see if I had a fever, or run.

Religion works because it attacks the brains of children. A child will believe the above nonsense as he would the Santa Claus story, complete with annual pilgrimage from the North Pole to suburbia and a million sooty chimneys. The difference between the two stories is that the Santa story is revealed to be a lie while the child is quite young, whereas the Jesus story is reinforced over and over again throughout the child's formative years and is continued into adulthood, Both stories are equally silly but there's money to be had and power to be grasped by keeping the Jesus fiction alive.

The people who cling most desperately to religious faith are the hurt, the lonely and the vulnerable. Some apologists say that this is the purpose of religion, to prop up those people who can't face the reality of life. But this is not a kindness, it is a cruelty. It is cruel in the same way that it would be cruel to cause someone to believe they are paralysed from the waist down and then to offer them a wheelchair. Surely it is kinder to show them that there is nothing wrong with their legs, that their paralysis is psycho-sematic.

I see nothing noble, worthy, kind or compassionate in telling a child that it will burn in hell unless it believes a certain set of myths and fables, and then shackling the child to that nightmare for the rest of its life. To me, that is an abominable thing to do. And that is precisely what the Catholic Church does. That is precisely what the fundamentalist protestant churches do. It is evil. It is obscene. But it is lucrative.

Money and power is what the christian church is all about. Its charitable works are fronts for its financial wheeling and dealing. It amazes me that christians aren't bright enough to notice that their churches represent the very opposite of what is claimed for the J man, like, power, wealth, rituals, magnificent gowns, silly hats, enormous buildings and even bigger egos. But this is all part of religious faith, believing the opposite of the truth which is staring you in the face.

The purpose of my campaign then is twofold. First it is to alert the world to the real and imminent danger of superstitious belief in the nuclear age. Second it is to notify those people crippled by religion that their mental paralysis was deliberately inflicted and that they are perfectly capable of restoring their faculties to normal.

ozheretic

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EVOLUTION vs CREATIONISM

1/ Religionists are inclined to ridicule science because quite often scientific discoveries turn out to be wrong. But that is the nature of discovery. It's said - although I'm not sure if I believe it - that Thomas Eddison tested more than a thousand different methods and formulas before he developed the electric light globe. The fact is he succeeded. Science works. Are there any christians out there who'd like to argue that Eddison was wrong and that the scientific glow they're reading by doesn't work?

Science is like driving from A to B without a map. The scientist will take several wrong turns, he'll find himself stuck in traffic, he'll have to reverse out of cul-de-sacs. Sometimes he'll turn left when he should have turned right. He'll find himself in a one way street heading the wrong way. He'll miss important signals and drive miles out of his way. He'll make the mistake of thinking he's arrived when really he's further away than ever. He'll encounter Turn Left signs when he wants to turn right. He'll drive into a cresent and go around in a big circle, and then just as he's ready to kick his car to pieces he'll recognise a landmark, and before long he's on a freeway heading towards B, and he reaches it, exhausted but elated.

Isn't that better than departing A, heading for B which is a hundred miles away, applying the hand brake a few yards down the track and announcing to the world - "I've arrived!"?

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2/ The creationist studies a grain of sand and insists that god created it in 6 days, 6,000 years ago. He argues that god singled out one group of microbes from all the rest and awarded them chosen microbe status. He instructed them how to trim their beards and how to wear their cassocks, he even taught them how to dig latrines. He told them to mutilate their genitals as a sign of their superior status. He led his chosen microbes into battle against the inferior microbes and he threatened to wipe excrement on the face of any microbe who disobeyed him. Next, he descended from heaven, cloaked himself in flesh and strolled around his favourite corner of the grain for a while. Then he had himself killed and he ascended back into heaven.
The creationist is happy with this world view.

The evolutionist, on the other hand, lifts his head and notices that he's standing on Bondi Beach.

ozheretic

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DO NOT DISTURB!

I am God! I am omnipotent. Therefore I can do anything. My child aged three years is reaching for the saucepan handle. The saucepan contains boiling fat. I sit there, just three feet away, watching. He grasps the handle of the saucepan and pours the scalding fat all over his face and body. I continue observing the spectacle, impassionately. I am God! Omnipotent. I can do anything. But I choose not to. To my left a little girl is being raped, coarse hands around her delicate throat suffocate the life out of her. To my right a beautiful child is being smashed against a wall by its brutal parent. I'm watching, but I'm busy at the moment. Please worship me. I am the Merciful Father.

ozheretic

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mini-mini-mini-mini god

Mike Willisee spent two hours on Channel Nine last night trying to convince us that "god" is signalling his existance to us via earthly phenomenon such as wax oozing out of a painting, "tears" dripping from a plaster statue, blood seeping out of a self inflicted graze on somebody's palms, and all kinds of other "paranormal" claptrap. And I'm thinking to myself - What a pathetic, low rent "god" you worship Mike. Wax, urine, droplets of blood, so what? Show me a "god" who can cure my girlfriend of spina bifida and then we'll know we're jiving with El Supremo!

ozheretic

ATHEIST ARMY (3)

ATHEIST ARMY (1)

The CHURCH of REAL

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